This will consume 2 travel days indeed. You'll need reservations to Milan and from Milan to Rome. They can be booked on tickets.oebb.at (that's cheaper than via Interrail).

Some remarks:

• The night train Koblenz - Basel also stops in Bonn and normally also in Cologne. You may want to board it earlier.
• Please don't count on the 8-minute connection in Basel. It might work but that's far from certain.

Yes, this journey above would use two of your four days. 

And I agree, you might even want to pick up the Nightjet in Arnhem or Dusseldorf, instead of Koblenz, so you get to board it earlier. The train starts in Amsterdam.

What is your return journey from Rome? If you plan to leave Rome in the morning and get the Nightjet from Basel the same evening, then you will only use one travel day to reach Arnhem. Because you board the Nightjet on the same day you leave Rome (date of departure counts). But you can’t change trains after midnight, so you’d have to pay your own ticket to Den Bosch after you leave the Nightjet.

Thanks for the fast reply, about the travelling days is quite clear now. I will check some prices and compare those to an extra day within the global pass. I saw your advice about making reservations on oebb.at in another conversation in this community, also very helpfull.

Also thanks for the trip-advice. At the moment I cannot see any travel-times in august (we plan to leave around the 5th or 6th). The trip in my question came up when I was looking for possibilities, ofcourse there are other options. Unfortunately a lot of them had lots of changing time at certain trainstations (I'm not looking forward to spending 6 hours in Chiasso waiting for our next train during the middle of the night). At the moment the train that arrives in Basel at 6.20h seems to be the first one, but I can imagine changing time of 6 minutes on such a long travel is uncertain indeed. I will probably look into our definite travelling plans later when it can be found here.

Also thanks Ralderton for your answer. So Arnhem (or Amsterdam, travelling from Den Bosch is about the same time) is a better place to start our journey? Offcourse we can pay the ticket from Den Bosch to Arnhem or Amsterdam ourselves so it won't take up our outbound journey.

I haven't planned the way back home. It will probably start at Naples than, not in Rome. Perhaps it is still possible to get the Nightjet from Basel to Arnhem and only use one (inbound) travelday.

You could also board the train in Arnhem at 22:02.

• IC ‘s-Hertogenbosch 20:54 - Arnhem 21:37 
• Nightjet Arnhem 22:02 - Zürich HB 08:05

There is a supplement for couchettes and sleepers (book way in advance, they sell out quickly).

As @rvdborgt said, don’t count on the 8-min connection as Nightjets are notoriously late. I’d recommend going as far as Zurich, you could maybe sleep a little bit more on the train.

• EC Zürich HB 09:33 - Milano Centrale 12:50 11€ seat reservation
• Frecciarossa Milano Centrale 13:10 - Roma Termini 16:49 10€ (or the 13:58 train which arrives 21 min later but gives you more time in Milan)

Edit : As @ralderton suggested, you should board in Arnhem. But the Nightjet is already full for the dates you mentioned (I could just get my tickets last weekend for 5th August) so you’ll need to adapt your journey.

And btw the Italian timetable has not been yet published for summer. You can check for the next days and it certainly won’t change much

If you want to save a travel day on the outbound journey, you’d have to buy a ticket from your starting station to Bonn-Beuel, which is the first stop after midnight. (But you don’t need to get off the train there!)

I think I would board in Arnhem or Amsterdam - whatever works best for you when you look at the timetable. Boarding earlier is better, because it gives you time to settle into your cabin.

Also, the train continues to Zurich after Basel. You may wish to stay on, sleep for longer, and make the connection to Milano at Zurich instead.

For the return journey there are more Nightjet options (but be aware that it won’t stop in Arnhem on selected dates due to engineering works) :

• Basel SBB - Utrecht Centraal 23:13 - 09:22 176€ for a (private) 4-people couchette (for example on 19.08)

I’d leave Naples at 10:30 and this journey will enable you to see another area of Switzerland :

• Frecciarossa Napoli Centrale 10:30 - Milano Centrale 14:58
• EC Milano Centrale 15:20 - Basel SBB 19:32

You then eat dinner somewhere in Basel before catching the night train at 23:13. :)

You could also travel via Simplon/Basel SBB on the way to Italy and back via Gotthard/Zurich as you prefer...

Ah, thanks thibcabe. Zurich seems like a good option. 

We have some flexilility in starting our journey, later than 5 or 6 august is also possible. But if I understand you correctly we shouldn't wait to long with buying our passes and make reservations for this nightjet?

Nice, so it is possible in 1 day. Utrecht works fine for us! :-)

Yes I wouldn’t wait for buying Nightjet reservations. For example there seems to be availability on Sunday 06.08 (Utrecht/Arnhem - Zurich) and Saturday 19.08 (Basel - Utrecht) if that fits your schedule.

Please check nightjet.com or oebb.at (add Interrail discount)

You don’t need a pass to buy the reservations though but there is a sale right now on interrail.eu so I’d buy both anyway ! :)

And as you don’t need to select a starting date for the pass, it doesn’t matter when you buy it.

Edit : A 4-day pass should be enough but a 5-day pass is not much more expensive if you’re planning a day trip from Rome or Naples btw

• Day 1 : ‘s-Hertogenbosch - Utrecht/Arnhem + night train
• Day 2 : Zürich HB - Rome
• Day 3 : Rome - Naples
• Day 4 : Naples - Basel SBB + night train

Travellers,

Another question that came up during making reservations for the Nightjet. As I told above I'm travelling with my family (wife, kids of 12 and 13). Booking a private couchette is pretty expensive. But if I make reservations for the four of us in a 4 or 6 person-couchette there won't be any guarantee we sit in the same couchette, will there? Leaving our children on their own in a couchette with 5 strangers for the night is also a bit questionable for us. 

How are your experiences with reservations in these couchettes? Is it possible to swap places with other travellers perhaps (if we find anyone who is willing to)? 

Thanks again, almost there! :-)

You can book a 4-people couchette and you should be together -> see the couchette numbers you get after checkout.

If they're not together (carriage map here : https://www.seat61.com/reference/trainseatplans/amsterdam-zurich-ab33.jpg ), you could always cancel the booking free of charge, as it's a flexi purchase.

Edit : it should be 176€, let me know if you get another price

Done, we got:

coach 157

Couchette berth 51-54

in a four person couchette. So that would be all in the same couchette wouldn't it? 

I don't know why I've linked the sleeper map while you've booked couchettes. My bad !

Yes they are together. If it was a 6-people couchette the numbers 55 and 56 would be used but then it's all for you.

(unless I'm doing something wrong but I don't think so)

https://www.seat61.com/images/sleepers-couchettes2-large.jpg

Thanks for the late night reply. We can go to sleep now. We didn't quite figure out your first map, but that makes sense now… ;-)

Dear travellers,

I have bought our interrail tickets and made reservations for the nightjets to Zurich on the 6th of august en back to the Netherlands from Zurich on the 18th of august. I also could made reservations for the train form Zurich to Milano Centrale as thibcabe mentioned above (same traintimes), but I can't seem to find the Frecciarossa from Milano Centrale to Roma Termini in the OBB app or the interrail app. Only Frecciabianco 8619, it also departs at 13.10h but it will arrive in Roma at 20.03h. Will these timetables be published later?

Mmmmhh I can’t find the Frecciarossa on trenitalia.com either… a few high-speed trains are actually missing that day (and that week). Possible explanations :

• engineering works at that time (unlikely but we never know)
• timetable not available yet for whatever reason

As a further proof I’m not able to book any .italo (Trenitalia’s competitor) tickets that week. I’d wait a few days or weeks, these high-speed trains won’t sell out a long time in advance. At the moment the 14:20 train is available on trenitalia.com (for regular tickets) but not tickets.oebb.at…

Edit : I’m glad that you were able to book the night trains !

Thanks again! I will wait a few weeks and than try again. Hopefully the Frecciarossa will ride those weeks, a big part of our journey is based on those timetables… :-)

Another question that came up during reservations. I added the train home to my trip, but it says IC60402. The obb app says NJ 402. I found these are actually the same trains, but the NJ is the part of the train with couchettes. Will it work out fine if I add the IC60402 to my trips/tickets in the interrail app and have reservations for the NJ402 in the OBB app?

Also, this train-travelling seems to be quite challenging… I did an interrail trip with some friends about 20 years ago (also Rome and Naples) but I can't remember having all kinds of questions. On the other hand, maybe I wasn't planning it this well… :-)

Fingers crossed. At least we know that there's a later train at 14:20 running but let's wait first.

Yes it's perfectly fine to add IC60402, as you said it's basically the same train. I'd recommend to print reservations for night trains as the attendant might want to keep it for the night.

Indeed Spain (especially !) and France are quite difficult countries for Interrail : low frequency, seat reservations required on most trains,... Italy is in the middle : reservations on fast ones but they usually run hourly or every 2h. At least Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the UK and plenty other countries are fantastic : lots of trains, good network (and otherwise expensive tickets).... ;)

I'm still convinced that your trip will be fine